In Eindhoven, Utrecht and Assen smart projects are tackling everything from traffic to street crime. But with privacy laws being flouted and commercial companies in on the act, are things as benign as they seem?

Interconnected technology is now an inescapable reality – ordering our groceries, monitoring our cities and sucking up vast amounts of data along the way. The promise is that it will benefit us all – but how can it?

From lifts that travel horizontally as well as vertically to ‘smart’ elevators, the global city’s truly indispensable form of transport is going through a revolution that could change the urban landscape dramatically